Foundations of WPF: An Introduction to Windows Presentation Foundation

I didn't even know Laurence's book was released when I found it searching for WPF books. I ordered it and have been working with it for 4 days now. It's a definite keeper. The book is 10 chapters long and 315 pages including indexes and tables. Chapter 1 does the obligatory "Introduction" to the technology. Nothing groundbreaking here. Chapter 2 continues and provides a good intro and background. Chapter 3 is where the rubber hits the road and it goes through building your first WPF application. It's a simple app but serves as a great intro application. Chapter 4 covers "Building a Connected WPF Application". It's a superb discusson and again, although the app isn't overly complex, it gives you everything you need to build a complex 'real world' application. I've spent most of my time on CHapter 4, trying to come up with my own scenarios and using WCF to get my data. Chapter 5 - Layout controls. This chapter is a lot more involved than many of the other ones but when you're through with it, you'll know layout inside and out. Chapter 6 gets into XAML controls. This is the heart of WPF and it's explained in plenty of detail without overdoing it Chapter 7 goes into graphics and media. To be honest, I haven't spent a lot of time on this chapter, just breezed through it so I don't have a lot to say about it. Chapter 8 goes into animation and while related to the Chapter 7 content, animation is critical to making compelling WPF apps. I found this chapter particularly useful. Chapter 9 goes into 3d graphics, again, a centerpiece to compelling UI's with WPF. Priceless. Chapter 10 goes into distributing your WPF apps and well, it's a very nice touch. Few things are more frustrating than developing an app when you're learning and not being able to get it to deply correctly. I've done 3 apps so far and had 0 problems getting them deployed. I've been a big fan of Moroney's books for a while now and this book doesn't disappoint.